Title The Sleeping Giant (The Acadian Secret Book 2)
Author Tammy Lowe
Genre Action-Adventure, YA/Young Adult, Juvenile Fiction
Subgenre(s) Time Travel, Fantasy, Historical
Publisher The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb
When a tormented man begs 17-year-old Elisabeth London to travel back in time to save his life, she reluctantly agrees. Assuming Scotland is the destination, she ends up in Ancient Rome instead.
The good news is she finds the man; now a bold 17-year-old named Aquarius. The bad news is he’s an indentured slave, sentenced to death in the arena, and doesn’t even know her yet. Elisabeth helps Aquarius escape and becomes an outlaw herself. Armed with her wits and his rock sling, the new friends are on the run from a relentless slave dealer, Rufus Leptis.
Elisabeth soon realizes she’s not here to save Aquarius from Rufus, but from the doomed city of Pompeii. Although trying to be brave, the thought of remaining in Aquarius’ swashbuckling world a minute longer than necessary is inconceivable.
At least, it used to be.
Before that darn, happy-go-lucky slave stole her heart.
Excerpt
Elisabeth flinched at the strange noises. Instead of a thousand seagulls squawking and the thunderous waves of the North Sea crashing into the cliffs below the cottage, she was met with the distant screams of grown men and the smell of damp earth and wet stone. Her hands trembled as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Brick walls were lit with torches and muffled voices could be heard further along a passageway. A mouse scurried across her shoe and Elisabeth stifled a scream while jumping back.
With a shocked look on his face, a dark-haired young man popped his head out from the shadows and clasped his hand over her mouth. “By the gods, out of thin air you appear?” His face turned ashen. “Do not make a sound.”
He spoke to her in Latin.
Wide-eyed, Elisabeth nodded, and the man removed his hand from her mouth, pulling her back with him into the shadows, across from a cell where a prisoner paced behind the bars.
“Wait here.” He walked a few steps away and Elisabeth noticed he was dressed in a knee-length tunic with sandals.
“Cato? Is that you?” the prisoner whispered, also in Latin.
“Yes, it is me.”
“I cannot believe you are here.” His voice rose in pitch. “Nor can I believe my bad luck. Death in the arena?” He clutched the metal bars and began to yell. “DEATH IN THE ARENA?”
Elisabeth’s nails bit into her palms and she cursed under her breath. If this was Ancient Rome she’d kill David herself.
The inmate pressed his face against the cell door and a sunbeam from a tiny window lit up his features. When he pushed a wave of brown hair off his forehead, Elisabeth’s hands flew to her chest. She’d recognize those blue eyes anywhere.
This can’t be happening.
She let out a dejected sigh and rushed from the shadows. “David, how do I get you out of there?”
As he stared in confusion, her immersion in Latin now made sense but raised a million other questions. “You’ve spent years preparing for it,” he had said to her in the gazebo.
“David…quomodo ex illo loco te aufero?” she asked with a shaky voice.
A slow smile formed on his face when she spoke his language.
Elisabeth stepped closer to the prison cell and then curled both arms over her head as she realized the severity of the situation. “Oh God, tell me you didn’t just say death in the arena?”
David’s eyes brightened and he reached through the bars, grabbing hold of Elisabeth. “My name is Aquarius, good woman.”
She jerked her head back. “Aquarius?”
“I do not know this David of whom you speak, but listen…” He tilted his head toward her and smirked. “If this is a rescue mission, I will repay you handsomely, love.”
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Author Biography
An adventurer at heart, Tammy has explored ruins in Rome, Pompeii, and Istanbul (Constantinople) with historians and archaeologists.
She’s slept in the tower of a 15th century castle in Scotland, climbed down the cramped tunnels of Egyptian pyramids, scaled the Sydney Harbour Bridge, sailed on a tiny raft down the Yulong River in rural China, dined at a Bedouin camp in the Arabian Desert, and escaped from head-hunters in the South Pacific.
I suppose one could say her own childhood wish of time traveling adventures came true…in a roundabout way.
Social Media Links
Website: https://www.tammylowe.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsmetammylowe/
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